Social Promotion

Re "Gubernatorial Hopefuls Stress Education Goals," Nov. 23: I was greatly encouraged by the statement that the prospective gubernatorial candidates from the Democratic Party all favor "ending 'social promotion' of students who do not meet minimum standards." As a pre-doctoral instructor and teaching assistant in the Department of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara, I have graded literally thousands of student papers over the past four years. I can say without exaggeration that, based on the writing samples, the majority of my the first- and second-year students appear to have had no prior classes in grammar, style or English mechanics.

The nation's second-largest school district officially launched itself once more into an ongoing national debate over social promotion, the practice of moving students to the next grade even when they're academically unprepared. The Los Angeles Board of Education agreed last week to begin revamping a policy that bars the advancement of unqualified students to the next grade. The rules have been loosely enforced. One proposal is to focus more intensively on struggling students in grades three, five and seven, considered key transition years.

The nation's second-largest school district officially launched itself once more into an ongoing national debate over social promotion, the practice of moving students to the next grade even when they're academically unprepared. The Los Angeles Board of Education agreed last week to begin revamping a policy that bars the advancement of unqualified students to the next grade. The rules have been loosely enforced. One proposal is to focus more intensively on struggling students in grades three, five and seven, considered key transition years.

Re "Fathers don't always know best," Opinion, July 4 Mark Kurlansky writes that our country is the "most backward democracy in the West" and that we offer the "worst benefits for workers"; perhaps he can enlighten us as to why freedom-loving people from around the world want to come to this country for a better life for themselves and their families. We have immigration issues in the U.S. because we are the best. I will begin to worry about the United States when we no longer are a refuge for downtrodden masses.

Failing eighth-graders have been held back at Santa Rosa middle schools for the first time, officials said. The move ends so-called "social promotion," the practice of routinely sending all students on to high school. The district refused to let 21 of its 2,100 eighth-graders advance to ninth grade under a new Board of Education policy.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials recently scaled back ambitious plans to end social promotion in the coming school year, citing financial and logistical hurdles. Supt. Ruben Zacarias had announced in January that the district would identify at least 150,000 students at risk for failing and order them to attend summer school, Saturday sessions and after-school tutoring.

It's hard to believe now, what with half the political world watching, but there was a time when almost nobody was interested in Miguel Lopes' kids. They were the cutups, the laggards. Teachers banished them to the hallway, sighed with relief when they ditched. When the Long Beach school district, where Lopes is a principal, set out to give them a special campus, the neighbors sought an injunction. They imagined a school full of delinquents next door. Lopes wasn't surprised.

As children return to school next week, a new state law banning social promotion will force more than 5,000 students to return to the same grade--far more than ever before. Ending the widespread practice of advancing students despite failing marks has children--as well as their parents and teachers--struggling with the fact that they were flunked. Bonnie Wong, a fifth-grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School in Anaheim, agonized over her decision to hold back three students.

California schools are promoting children whose performance is below "grade level." But maybe not for long. Mayor Richard Riordan has demanded an end to "social promotion." Gov. Pete Wilson proposes changing the education code to prohibit advancing students who have not "achieved a passing score on a statewide assessment." L.A. school Supt. Ruben Zacarias has made social promotion's abolition a goal.

If the looming ban on social promotion is an educational earthquake, then Dena Elementary School in Boyle Heights is at the epicenter. Here, 70% of the 950 K-5 students were still learning in Spanish this fall. If the Stanford 9 educational test, which is given in English, is chosen as the most significant gatekeeper, at least half--if not all--of those children would not qualify for the next grade, said Principal Karen Robertson.

Re the Nov. 18 letter about the lack of success with school reform: A few years ago, there was a mandate by the state to end social promotion. It didn't happen, and we are still plagued with the ramifications of placing youngsters into learning environments that they are unprepared for. Placing ill-equipped and unmotivated youngsters into academic settings is like putting children with missing limbs who don't particularly like the water on...

Supporters and opponents of social promotion are fighting last century's war. Grouping students by age and advancing them in lock step is an artifact of the agrarian calendar and factory model of schooling that emerged in the late 19th century. That it is still with us is a commentary on just how conservative schooling is. If the school clock and calendar once made sense, they no longer do. It is time to rethink the organization we call school, and with it the very idea of social promotion.

The practice of social promotion in New York City schools: A) Affects students' self-esteem. B) Distorts academic achievement. C) Is a source of heated debate. D) All of the above -- and more. Vowing to end social promotion, which can advance students with shaky academic skills, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced last month that scores on the standardized English and math tests to be given this spring would be the only factors used to determine whether a third-grader moved on or was held back.

My comment about "giving up" is the beginning, not the end, of what's happening at Fremont High School ("A School Flails in a Sea of Chaos," July 14). Teachers have not given up on our students or the school, only on the possibility of real reform coming out of the LAUSD or the state auditing process. Although our students often lack the skills to fully express their ideas in standard academic English, we know they are intelligent, sensitive and capable of higher-level thinking. We are often moved by their thoughtfulness, creativity and insight, in spite of the terrible toll taken in day-to-day ways by violence, poverty and racism.

So, school board President Caprice Young was angry because she participated in a June 9 graduation ceremony and gave achievement certificates to students who, in fact, had not successfully completed their course work (" 'Graduates' Honored at a Dubious Exercise," July 27). Young shouldn't have been surprised, as phony graduations are rampant throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District. They are called "culminations" and are done at the end of the fifth grade. Students wear good clothes, in some cases specially bought for the occasion, make short speeches and are given certificates just before they go on to middle school.

For many Orange County students, summer means not the beach or round-the-clock video games but summer school. Some are there to get a leg up on the new academic year, but more than 20,000 are back in classrooms because they are struggling with reading, writing and math. Schools, parents and students are coming to terms with a year-old state law banning social promotion, the misguided practice of automatically advancing students to the next grade.

Summer schools across Southern California are brimming with elementary and middle schoolers whose academic work wobbles on the edge of holding them back a grade. In Orange County, more than 21,000 children considered at risk are enrolled in summer sessions that concentrate on reading, writing and math. The numbers are likely to rise.